Sportsmen to be proud of at last!

Stephen Glover

Last updated at 00:00 25 November 2003

ENGLAND'S epic victory in the Rugby World Cup brings back memories of that far- off day in 1966 when the England football team heroically carried off the World Cup. How much has changed in our country since then - and nowhere more than in the game of football.

The story of rugby and football is the story of two nations - not of rich and poor, or privileged and unprivileged, but of two approaches to life, two cultures.

Rugby represents much of what is best about our society, football much of what is worst.

Here are some differences off the field. Football crowds boo when the national anthems of opposing teams are played; rugby crowds generally do not.

In rugby, it is usual to applaud the skills of opponents; in football, it is virtually unheard of.

There are no rugby hooligans, but lots of football ones.

Things are different on the pitch, too. Football players quite often lash out when they are fouled, but rugby players rarely do. They are used, in the normal course of the game, to being pummelled, stepped on and crashed into, but they generally accept these knocks uncomplainingly. Footballers sometimes react to the slightest injury as though a leg has been lopped off, before miraculously recovering in an instant.

What is the difference? Some people will claim it is social.

They will say that football is traditionally a working- class game, and rugby a more middleclass one. But this does not begin to explain why one game is characterised by ill temper, petulance and occasional violence while the other proclaims its sense of fair play.

Fifty years ago, football supporters were as wellbehaved as any rugby crowd, and football players every bit as sporting as rugby ones. George Orwell remarked on the particular 'gentleness' of crowds at football matches. It was very common to applaud - I rely here on old newsreels and the testimony of older witnesses - an outstanding piece of skill on the part of an opponent.

THE 11 young men who won the World Cup for England in 1966 had far more in common with the young men who won the Rugby World Cup on Saturday than with almost any modern football team. They did not drink immoderately or (unlike the Argentinians in the same competition) act in an unsportsmanlike way on the field. Players such as Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton, though humbly born, were nature's gentleman.

Something has gone dreadfully wrong. It was not principally money, though that has played a part. It was something deeper. From the Sixties, large parts of society became increasingly ill-mannered and yobbish as old values collapsed. Football did not merely reflect this. In some bizarre way, it attracted the new debased standards of public behaviour.

Long before footballers were being paid Pounds 50,000 a week, some of them were behaving like louts on the field while supporters in the stands, formerly so civilised, had become increasingly rude and aggressive. In ten or 15 years - say from 1960 until the mid-Seventies - the culture of football was transformed.

Rugby resisted all this. It went on as it had always been and as football had once been. In part, this was because it was run by the 'chaps in blazers' so derided by the liberal intelligentsia for their old-fashioned values and supposedly limited vision. But these chaps, whether as administrators or supporters, were able to defend and safeguard standards of conduct. It also transpired that they were able to modernise rugby, turning it from an amateur to a professional game at the top level with a competence that disarmed their critics.

No doubt rugby may have been helped by not having very much money, while football has been partly undermined by having too much. But that does not properly explain why some young footballers misbehave. Rugby, it is true, has had its scandals, but they are nothing in comparison with football's. Almost every week brings a new story of a young footballer in trouble with the authorities. Last week, a Leeds player was charged with rape.

The differences between footballers and rugby players have nothing to do with background.

There are many state schooleducated players in the England rugby squad. It is a question of attitude, of culture. Many footballers seem to find it much more difficult than rugby players to accept authority. They do not have the same degree of discipline and self-control as the England rugby team.

FOR THIS reason, there is not much likelihood that money and fame will spoil England's rugby heroes.

They are young men and can hardly be expected to behave like saints. But most of them seem too grounded to allow it to go to their heads.

Riches will not encourage them to behave like yobs, far less to commit criminal acts.

Tony Blair has never shown the slightest interest in rugby, and has grabbed every opportunity of showing off his footballing skills. His reasoning must be that rugby, at least up until now, has been a much less popular game than football. He may be having second thoughts.

No sooner had Martin Johnson, the England captain, lifted the Webb Ellis Cup than Downing Street was on the telephone to the rugby authorities proposing a special celebration. Mr Blair plainly sees great political benefit in associating himself with England's victorious boys.

But does he see the wider significance? Rugby does not only stand for good manners in the stands and on the field.

England won - without cheating or behaving badly or reacting to the taunts of the Australian media. Their victory was the result of months of meticulous planning and preparation. England's rugby team are the nice guys, and the nice guys won. The England football team has not won anything since 1966, when we had a wellbehaved and disciplined squad, under a strong manager who bears comparison with Clive Woodward, manager of the victorious England rugby team.

Mr Blair can scarcely be blamed for the debasement of English football, for the fans who boo opponents' national anthems or for the players who do not know how to behave on or off the field. The brutalisation of part of English society since the Sixties is not his fault, although he has done precious little to correct it.

But he should realise that the impending celebrations are not just an easy photo-opportunity for him to win votes. There are two alternatives here, two paradigms of what England could become, of what this country might achieve.

That is why millions of people who know practically nothing about rugby were so ecstatic on Saturday.

They saw that it was possible, after all, for the English to do something well, and to do it with grace.